Harvard chemistry professor Sunney Xie was one of six recipients of the 2009 E.O. Lawrence Award for his outstanding contributions in research and development supporting the Department of Energy and its missions.

Specifically, Xie will be honored for his innovations in nonlinear Raman microscopy and highly sensitive vibrational imaging, his scientific leadership in establishing the field of single-molecule biophysical chemistry, and his seminal work in enzyme dynamics and live cell gene expression. Xie is in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who announced the six winners on Dec. 16, said, “The contributions made by these researchers to advance the national, economic, and energy security of the United States are wide-ranging and meaningful. I congratulate the winners and look forward to their discoveries still to come.”

The award recipients will receive a gold medal, a citation, and $50,000. They will be honored at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., early this year.

The Lawrence Award was established in 1959 to honor the memory of Ernest Orlando Lawrence who invented the cyclotron (a particle accelerator), and after whom two major Energy Department laboratories in Berkeley and Livermore, Calif., are named.

A growing number of monks are coming to Harvard Divinity School through the Ho Family Foundation Scholars program, which covers all tuition and living expenses for a year. They share their experiences and diverse backgrounds.

Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital find that participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress.